"Physical therapy is not a subspecialty of the medical profession and physical therapists are not medical doctors; we are a separate profession that provides a unique service that physicians are unable and untrained to provide."

Letter to the AMA from the APTA, Dec 2009

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Physicians Cannot Control Physical Therapy Costs Under Medicare ACOs

Physician directed care cannot control costs under Medicare Accountable Care Organizations - that is the conclusion of a new report by Dr. Jane Pendergrast and presented by Dr. Pamela Duffy at the American Physical Therapy Association's State Payment and Policy Forum in Austin, Texas:
A Comparison of Health Care Use for Physician-Referred and Self-Referred Episodes of Outpatient Physical Therapy
The professional best able to control costs for physical therapy services is likely the physical therapist, in collaboration with the patient.

Physical therapists can, and should, use this report to advocate for direct access by educating their payers and their state legislators.

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Tim Richardson, PT owns a private practice at Medical Arts Rehabilitation, Inc in Palmetto, Florida. The clinic website is at MedicalArtsRehab.com.

Bulletproof Expert Systems: Clinical Decision Support for Physical Therapists in the Outpatient Setting is a manager's workbook with stories, checklists, charts, graphs, tables, and templates describing how you can use paper-based or computerized tools to improve your clinic's Medicare compliance, process adherence and patient outcomes.

Tim has implemented a computerized Clinical Decision Support (CDS) system in his clinic since 2006 that serves as a Reminder, Alerting, Prompting and Predicting CDS using evidence-based tests and measures.

Tim can be reached at
TimRichPT@BulletproofPT.com .

"Make Decisions like Doctors"


Copyright 2007-2010 by Tim Richardson, PT.
No reproduction without authorization.

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American Physical Therapy Association

American Physical Therapy Association
Consistent with the American Physical Therapy Association Vision Statement for Physical Therapy 2020, the American Physical Therapy Association supports exclusive physical therapist ownership and operation of physical therapy services.